Horror Movies and Dating
by Robyn the Snowshoe Hare
Summary: Sweet irony combined with some canned laughter and coconuts add a new level to Xander and Anya's relationship.


Author's Note: It had to be done. It's just strangely ironic that I'm the one who ended up doing it. *eg*   
  
Dedicated to: Petronius, CaBil, Sam, and the Watcher's Council.  
  
Some Halloween horrors. *g*  
  
~*~*~*~*~  
  
Anya sat on the couch, watching in amusement as Xander hit the 'rewind' button. After the Halloween fiasco, he had invited her over to his basement for the two-week anniversary of their copulation. Pleased that he had remembered, Anya had gone to his basement expecting all the romance that her exhaustive research into relationships had promised.  
  
Clearly she needed to find research materials apart from Danielle Steele novels. Xander's big idea of a two-week anniversary was to rent a whole pile of scary movies to show her the 'real' meaning of Halloween rather than the candlelit dinner that she had imagined.  
  
After yawning through five of Xander's 'certified-scares' Anya would've expected that Xander would've given up. True, he had looked slightly annoyed when she did her nails during the final bloodbath of Scream, but he was had kept trying right up until she fell asleep during The Omen.  
  
And, demons help her, but Anya found it charming. Maybe she was approaching this whole human thing the wrong way. Maybe some really good therapy would help her get over Xander faster.  
  
Or better yet, maybe a shrink could help convince her that getting over Xander *was* the right idea. Because she was having some very mixed feelings about that.  
  
Damn it, she was Anyanka! She had spent millennia wrecking revenge onto the unfaithful males, which had been pretty busy work. The reason she was in Sunnydale was because Xander himself had been unfaithful to his last girlfriend! She should be trying to find a way to get her power center back and get back to work.  
  
But just sitting here, resting her head comfortably on his shoulder while he ran idle fingers through her hair was just so nice....  
  
Anya hoped that most women were schizophrenia, because she was having serious doubts about her sanity. But those doubts could wait. Noticing that Xander was making no movement towards the VCR remote, she tilted her head so that she could see his face and grinned at him in triumph.  
  
"Given up?" she asked. Her heart gave a weird little tha-thump when he gave her a rueful expression.   
  
"You were right." he said, punctuating the statement with a quick kiss that sent her heart into another round of funny little calisthenics. "You don't scare."  
  
"I love it when you agree with me." Anya exulted. "It means that you're getting smarter." Ignoring the expression on his face that always looked like he had suddenly swallowed a bug, Anya snuggled closer, tilting her face up for another kiss.  
  
Well, that was the plan at least. Anya should've remembered that Xander could never just go along with reasonable logic.  
  
"One more movie." He said quickly, sliding off the couch so unexpectedly that Anya lost her balance and plopped onto her side. Her eyes glittering with rage, Anya opened her mouth to give him a tirade that would make his male-oppressor ancestors flinch, but found the words dying unspoken as she looked at him.  
  
Loading a tape into the VCR, Xander's dark hair fell into his face as a little smile played on his lips. Staring at his soft brown eyes, Anya felt her resolve dissolve. She even found herself smiling back. "You'll like it." he promised softly, some strange amusement dancing in his eyes.   
  
The idea that a *man* was making her feel so strange and unlike herself should've been urging her to bile. So why wasn't it?  
  
She could think about that later. Right now all she wanted to do was concentrate on how nice it felt when Xander returned to the couch, and she returned to her former position. Snuggling against him, Anya was surprised to find that she liked the way he smelt. It wasn't the cologne that she remembered all the alpha males from high school spritzing on themselves whenever they tried to make a pass at her, but instead it was just a . . . a . . . a *Xandery* smell. Elusive and indescribable, it was nevertheless him. A comforting smell.  
  
Another weird thing to pondered later.  
  
Curled up practically into his lap, things were getting interesting when a loud "WHOA, THERE!" echoed from the TV. Anya glanced at the screen. After a long moment, she looked up and Xander, who was grinning at her widely.  
  
"Xander," she said flatly, "that man is skipping while the guy next to him claps coconuts together."  
  
Xander nodded.  
  
"You find this humorous?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Anya looked back at the screen, where the man on the castle wall had just asked the skipping man who he was.  
  
"It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!" shouted the skipping man.  
  
With a shudder, she settled back for a long movie.  
  
For forty minutes, Anya resisted the urge to shut off the movie. Xander was clearly loving every minute of the movie, and to her utter horror had memorized entire scenes. But she could see the disappointment that her disinterest caused, and so tried to fake interest. But finally Xander turned to her and asked, "Not having any fun?"  
  
"No, sorry." Amazingly, she *did* feel sorry that she couldn't share this interest with him, just as she had felt sorry when he had tried to get her interested in the World Series. Anya added yet another mental note to her growing list of things to ponder. Why should she feel *guilt* when it was *he* who should be trying to entertain *her*?  
  
"It's okay." Xander said with a sigh. "After this next scene, we'll turn it off and watch a movie that you want."  
  
"Sounds good." she responded. "What's this next scene?"  
  
"The Cave of Caerbannog." he responded gleefully, his eyes alight with anticipation.   
  
"That's the thing that Tim the Enchanter was talking about, right?"   
  
"Yep. The one with the big, pointy teeth."   
  
Settling back, Anya watched as the knights and the enchanter peeked over a small bluff. Xander had turned the volume up again, and the lines echoed.  
  
"Too late!" moaned Tim the Enchanter, as a dramatic chord bellowed in the background. Anya tensed slightly when a white rabbit hopped out of the cave mouth. She hated rabbits. Meanwhile, the inane dialogue continued, with Xander cheerfully speaking the lines along with the actors.  
  
"There he is!"   
  
"Where?"  
  
"There!"  
  
"What, behind the rabbit?"  
  
"It *is* the rabbit."  
  
"You silly sod!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You got us all worked up!"   
  
"Well, that's no ordinary rabbit!"   
  
"Ohh."  
  
"That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!"  
  
"You tit! I soiled my armour I was so scared!"  
  
"Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!"   
  
"Get stuffed!"  
  
"He'll do you up a treat, mate."   
  
"Oh, yeah?"  
  
"You mangy Scots git!"   
  
"I'm warning you!"  
  
"What's he do, nibble your bum?"  
  
"He's got huge, sharp-- eh-- he can leap about-- look at the bones!"   
  
"Go on, Bors. Chop his head off!"  
  
"Right! Silly little bleeder. One rabbit stew comin' right up!"  
  
Watching as one of the knights donned a helmet and drew a sword, Anya went nearly limp with relief. At least the rabbit would be out of the scene soon.   
  
Had she been looking at Xander and seen the look of anticipation on his face, Anya might've been prepared for what happened next. Or probably not. There was really no possible preparation for the horror of the Rabbit of Caerbannog.  
  
As the knight neared it, the rabbit suddenly let out a horrifying squeak and flew through the air to the knight. It then tore off his head in a torrent of stage blood, its dark eyes gleaming maniacally.   
  
With a scream of terror, Anya slammed first her hands over her eyes then hid her face against Xander's chest. Xander immediately hugged her and murmured supportively. Hearing no more of those awful squeaks from the movie, Anya dared to take her hands off of her eyes and look at the screen.  
  
Just in time to watch the ill-fated charge of all the knights. As they rushed the rabbit in a wave, there was one shot of the horrible little rodent just gazing at them with those awful eyes, then it began flying around in a frenzy of fluffy, squeaking death. Stage blood spilled everywhere. Anya's second scream was no less panic-filled, but it was slightly softer. Once again, she hid her eyes, and once again she leaned against Xander. This time, though, the natural order of things fell into place, and a make-out session was the result.   
  
Which, as everyone knows, is why teenage guys like to bring dates to horror movies. Adrenaline added to hormones has a rather expected result.  
  
On their third anniversary, Xander rented Watership Down.  
  



End file.
